Page 25 of Reckless

He didn’t answer right away. Then, finally, he said, “Yeah.”

I removed the restraints in silence. I had a strange, cold sensation in my chest, like I’d failed. Like what was missing for us was actually something missing from me. I’d wanted, for a moment there, to tell him to stop holding back. But I wasn’t sure he was the one who was.

He got to his knees clumsily once I freed him, then swung his legs over the edge of the mattress to sit. The bed creaked as I sat beside him. He picked up the towel I’d laid down and draped it over his lap, as though self-conscious. I put an arm around his shoulders, not sure if it was a welcome gesture or not.

“I liked most of it,” he offered after a few moments. “The first part, especially. Really. I’m just…kinda…not sure.”

“About what?”

He hesitated. “I like things pretty rough.”

Something inside me sank. Here I’d been smug when he’d responded so well to that first scene a few days ago. But maybe what he truly wanted was something I didn’t know how to give.

“Maybe…” he continued. “Maybe it doesn’t work for me when it’s so planned out? Like, that sort of hurt, the part at the end, but…” His fingers curled around the edge of the mattress as he looked down at his feet. “But if you’d shoved me against a wall and just done it without asking, like…it might have hurt worse, but I’d’ve handled it better.”

“The adrenaline rush,” I said.

“Maybe, yeah.”

He glanced sideways at me. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “You were really nice. I don’t know why I’m like this.”

Nice.

All the fantasies I had about Robbie, the things I’d like to do to him, the desperate need I felt to take charge…and he thought I was nice.

But I’d rather be nice than unsafe.

Rather look out for him than do whatever he was letting the guys on the mainland do. Leave scars, he’d said, when I’d asked what he didn’t want done to him. And yeah, there were people who did that, consensually and as safely as possible. But Robbie wasn’t talking about those people.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I said.

He replied quickly, “You didn’t. I mean, it wasn’t on purpose. It just felt kinda weird, since I’d already…” He shrugged.

“I understand.”

“Maybe I just don’t get it?” he offered.

“It’s okay,” I said. “There’s nothing to ‘get.’ We just have to see what works.” I said it as though there’d be a next time. As though he’d give me another chance. When I had no idea if he would.

I thought of Neal and wanted, suddenly and absurdly, to ask his advice. He’d laugh his arse off at the idea that I was too nice.

“Want to come to the kitchen?” I asked. “Are you hungry?”

“I’d probably better go,” he said.

“Of course.”

And so I watched him leave, wondering once again if it would be the last time I’d see him here.

I was determined that it wouldn’t be. We might not be hitting all the right notes just yet, but there was something there.

I had to figure out how to be a little less nice. Just a little. How to give him that edge of danger without hurting him. Without sending him running for someone who could really hurt him.

Maybe I should find someone to ask for advice—without stating the exact nature of my problem, of course.

But who would I ask?

I had no friends here. No friends to speak of back on the mainland either. My entire life had been Neal. Even once the marriage had grown stale, it still made me feel like someone, it had given me a role, a place in the world. I knew it wasn’t healthy to be that dependent on another person. Of course I knew that. And until I figured out how to be someone on my own, I had no business dragging Robbie into my mess. No business using him to fill a void that I was starting to worry had been there long before Neal’s death.